Understanding Trauma and PTSD in Women: How is Trauma Stored in the Body?
Healthy brains are like the most impressive supercomputer on the planet. Our brains have an intricate network of 86 billion neurons that can process information at a very fast rate. Each second, trillions of electric pulsations flicker through your brain.
This matrix encodes and stores your experiences and memories, organizing a unique mosaic of you. However, what happens if a shock, such as a traumatic event, disrupts this system? How and why does trauma linger in the mind and body, impacting our health for years?
The reality is trauma and PTSD in women do not live only in our heads. Trauma leaves a physical stamp on our bodies, in addition to jolting memory storage and brain functions. Read on as we explore more about trauma and PTSD in women. If you have been impacted by a traumatic event or a series of traumatic experiences and continue to feel the aftermath even though years have passed, you are not alone.
What are Trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)?
Trauma refers to any experience or event that makes us feel threatened or unsafe. While overwhelming or life-threatening events such as war, accidents, or abuse may lead to PTSD, more commonly experienced scenarios such as medical or health complications, breakups, and divorce, or having your emotional needs go unmet as a child can also be stored in our bodies and brains as traumas if left unprocessed. Post-traumatic stress can occur when we encounter the results or aftermath of a traumatic event long after it's over. When not adaptively attended to, these adverse effects may last longer and cause comorbid conditions.
Trauma is a normal reaction to threat or harm. Some women who encounter trauma and PTSD symptoms may be unaware of their trauma histories, and others may even work hard to minimize the sometimes devastating impacts of living with their trauma or symptoms of PTSD. All too often, trauma can create debilitating cycles of shame and self-blame.
Different Types of Post-Traumatic Stress
Post-traumatic stress disorder can result from a one-time event, such as witnessing violence, a sexual assault or a severe car accident. Complex PTSD occurs when a traumatic event recurs over time or in the context of a series of traumatic events such as delineated below. Traumatic events resulting in complex trauma may have:
Occurred over a prolonged period
Repeated many times
Transpired early in life, such as with ongoing emotional neglect
Trauma reactions or symptoms of trauma may include:
Muscle tension, feeling ‘on edge’, or tightness/pressure in the chest
Symptoms of depression include persistent sadness, anhedonia, or persistent despair
Feeling of hopelessness, worthlessness, feeling undeserving of happiness or success
Having issues being close to or trusting others
Being prone to emotional impulsiveness and outbursts
Experiencing guilt or shame
Long-term difficulties with sleeping
Frequent difficulty focusing or brain fog
Not feeling entitled to your own opinions, feelings, or wishes
Difficulty feeling relaxed or calm
Hypervigilance
Re-experiencing aspects of a trauma via nightmares, flashbacks, or intrusive unwanted thoughts, memories, or images
What Happens to Your Brain After a Trauma
Explicit and implicit memory are both forms of long-term memory. Explicit memory is relevant to remembering our earlier experiences. While implicit memory refers to information that we store in our brains and bodies subconsciously, explicit memory refers to memories that we actively and consciously memorize and store. Traumatic experiences can impact our memory processing and storage functions.
More specifically, research indicates a relationship between memory lapses and blockages of memories associated with emotional, psychological, or physical trauma. To cope with traumatic experiences, some people may dissociate, or encode traumatic memories into particular bodily sensations or images that we block from our explicit memories. In other words, memories associated with traumatic events may be divided into parts and stored as fragments of our five senses, rather than a cohesive narrative. These fragmented memories may manifest later on in response to trauma reminders via physical sensations, bodily tension, pain, and other trauma symptoms without explicit recall of traumatic memories.
When we do not process and heal from traumatic experiences in a healthy manner, these divided ‘parts’ can get stuck like pieces of shrapnel, delaying the brain's normal healing process and functionally rewiring our brain structure as a means of survival. Essentially, the traumatic experience can get stuck or locked into the body via associated sights, smells, or sounds, even if we don’t explicitly remember specific details of the event(s). When we do not process and heal from trauma adaptively, this rewiring as a means of survival can increase our risk for developing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. While trauma is not physically stored in our muscles or our bones, it can result in an overactive central nervous system. That is, we may constantly be on high alert in preparation for impending threats to our physical or emotional safety. We maintain the need to protect ourselves from threats or danger by storing this need in the parts of our brain that control memory and emotion regulation. The nervous system will then become activated whenever a sensory experience or situation reminds us of an aspect of the trauma we have experienced, even if we are not actually in danger.
Three areas of the brain that contribute to stress management can shift when impacted by PTSD:
The hippocampus, the part of the brain focused on emotion, memory, and autonomic nervous system function, shrinks
The amygdala, the part of the brain that processes emotion (particularly fear and threat) and visual images, can become hyperactive (i.e., an increased function that can render our fight, flight, or freeze response overactive)
The prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that is central to processing and coping with fear, may become less active (i.e., decreased function)
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Women
Women react to traumatic circumstances in different ways. Common trauma reactions include experiencing flashbacks or nightmares about the traumatic incident. Symptoms of PTSD or trauma reactions in women may include:
Spending less time with friends and family, or social withdrawal
Avoiding people, places, or things that function as reminders of the traumatic event(s)
Lethargy, fatigue, or despondence in response to daily activities
Emotion dysregulation or intense emotional reactions without a clear or direct trigger or cause
Anxiety especially in the context of a desire for control or fear/intolerance of uncertainty
Perfectionistic tendencies
Sudden or unexplained onset of panic symptoms
Irritability and/or hypervigilance without a direct cause or trigger
Feeling empty or emotionally numb
Feeling easily overwhelmed
In the case of ongoing childhood trauma, gaps in childhood memories or limited recall of childhood memories
To manage distressing feelings, bodily unease, and other symptoms of trauma, it is common for women to develop coping mechanisms that relieve pain or physical discomfort, even if the relief is temporary. Misuse of alcohol or drugs, physical self-harm, social withdrawal, avoidance of triggering situations, people, or places, and behaviors that provide an illusion of control such as disordered eating habits are examples of maladaptive or unhealthy coping strategies.
Some women may engage in people-pleasing behaviors, avoid confrontation, or tend to prioritize other peoples’ needs over their own. While these forms of coping may feel adaptive in the moment and result in temporary relief, over time, these behavioral and relational patterns can increase feelings of sadness, overwhelm, or isolation. Ultimately, such relational patterns can be maladaptive and may be misaligned with goals around forming meaningful, fulfilling, and healthy relationships. It is when we begin to recognize ongoing symptoms of depression or relational distress that we may become motivated to seek professional help or treatment.
Trauma Recovery
You may be wondering why some people recover from trauma without seeking professional help, while others develop PTSD and require trauma therapy and PTSD treatment to move forward. First and foremost, it is important to note that you are not at fault or to blame if you are struggling to recover from trauma on your own or if you are stuck in your healing process. PTSD develops when we get stuck in our trauma responses and our symptoms result in extensive and prolonged distress. You are not to blame for developing PTSD and it does not mean that you have done anything wrong, or that there is anything inherently wrong with you or about you. However, it does mean that there is a barrier or block to the organic healing process.
Several factors can impede or get in the way of healing naturally from a traumatic experience or series of traumatic events. Some of these factors can include:
Ongoing or persistent exposure to trauma. If you are continually exposed to danger or harm, you will be at a higher risk for developing post-traumatic stress disorder. If you are unable to access physical and emotional safety, you will not be able to recover and heal, because your nervous system will continue to remain on high alert. This means that if you are a survivor of ongoing or prolonged abuse, or systemic oppression, or have experienced a series of traumatic events, you are more likely to develop PTSD.
Ongoing or persistent threat of trauma. Even if you do not continually experience ongoing trauma or a series of traumatic events, if you are exposed to an ongoing threat, potential, or possibility of repeated trauma, your nervous system will have a much harder time recovering and finding its way to safety. Rather, you and your body will again remain on ‘high alert’ for danger and risk. Examples of continued threats are if you experience any form of sexual, physical, or emotional abuse, and you continue to be exposed to the perpetrator of your abuse, even if they do not actually act again.
Experiencing self-blame or being blamed by others. Unfortunately, it is all too common for trauma survivors to blame themselves for their traumatic experiences or even for others to blame you for your experience or abuse. Blame, whether self-inflicted or not, can generate feelings of guilt and shame that perpetuate emotional distress and create barriers to seeking help.
Poor quality or lack of social support. Suffering alone is a barrier to healing and trauma recovery. Healing from trauma is painful and difficult enough when you have a solid social support system to lean on and take refuge in when you are at your most vulnerable. Support can come in different shapes and forms, and access to support is critical for recovery. Whether you can lean on trusted family members, friends, mentors, or a professional specializing in trauma treatment, trauma recovery is ‘better together.’
Trauma and PTSD Treatment for Women
First, let’s establish that there is hope. It is entirely possible to heal and recover from trauma. This may not mean that we entirely eliminate negative emotions surrounding your trauma history. However, with the support of a trauma and PTSD therapist, you can learn to cope with PTSD symptoms and generate long-term, sustainable healing. Our brains are malleable and are able to heal and grow.
Recognizing that you are not alone in your symptoms or trauma responses, learning more about how trauma can impact women, and organizing and making meaning out of your experiences and coping patterns can bring great relief and provide a pathway for how to cope and heal.
There are various evidence-based therapy modalities that effectively treat trauma and PTSD. Interpersonal psychotherapy, Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT), and several forms of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), including Prolonged Exposure (PE), as well as Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Acceptance-and-Commitment Therapy (ACT) and EMDR therapy, are all evidence-based therapy options.
The first step of any trauma therapy is normalizing the symptoms, trauma reactions, and experiences of an individual who has experienced trauma or has symptoms consistent with PTSD. While there are a number of effective treatment options, one of the most important factors is finding a trauma and PTSD therapist who makes you feel safe. Safety looks and feels like compassion and collaboration from a therapist who is non-judgmental and helps you to build a trusting therapeutic relationship.
Get support with trauma therapy and PTSD treatment in New York City
You don’t have to face your trauma alone. Align Therapy Services can help you get the support you need to begin your healing journey. Living with symptoms of PTSD is overwhelming, painful, and exhausting. Scheduling a consultation can be the first step to getting your life back. Meeting with a trauma psychologist can help you learn tools to cope with physiological symptoms, work through feelings of guilt and shame, and move toward recovery and a life that is aligned with your values.
About the author, a New York City Trauma and PTSD Therapist:
Dr. Rachel Larrain Montoni, PhD, is a New York City-based licensed psychologist and founder of Align Therapy Services. She provides online therapy to residents of New York, Connecticut, and Washington D.C. Dr. Montoni offers mental health services including individual therapy for teens and adults who are struggling with interpersonal relationships or suffering from anxiety, depression, trauma, grief, and disordered eating, among other specialty areas. She specializes in therapy for women who want to find fulfillment, build self-worth, and become the best version of themselves.
Disclaimer:
This blog is for educational and informational purposes only, and provides general information about mental health and related content. The information and other content provided via this blog, website, or in any linked materials should not be considered, or used as a substitute for, medical or mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This blog does not constitute the practice of any medical or mental health care.
